


get me past the ghost of you

by glitteratiglue



Series: post-breakup [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Canon Compliant, F/M, Lovers to Friends, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21986335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteratiglue/pseuds/glitteratiglue
Summary: Breakups never get easier, no matter how old you get, Will thinks. He’s twenty-six, a lieutenant on a starship and he might as well be thirteen again, lying on his bed listening to melancholic music because his first crush dumped him.
Relationships: William Riker/Deanna Troi
Series: post-breakup [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596877
Comments: 13
Kudos: 28





	get me past the ghost of you

**Author's Note:**

> I found this lurking in my drafts and polished it off.

Breakups never get easier, no matter how old you get, Will thinks. He’s twenty-six, a lieutenant on a starship and he might as well be thirteen again, lying on his bed listening to melancholic music because his first crush dumped him.

“Computer. Audio off.” He curls onto his side, miserable, a hollow ache in his chest. He tries not to think of Deanna, bereft and broken by the decision he made for the both of them. His fingers stray to the new solid pip adorning his collar, and he isn’t sure it was worth it after all.

The third day Will shows up for shift with red-rimmed eyes, his mind is elsewhere and he bombs out at firing the phasers during a battle drill.

“Lieutenant!” the first officer yells. “Fire!”

A holographic vision of the _Potemkin_ exploding appears on screen, and Will wishes he could sink into the floor. He endures the dressing down from his commanding officer as best he can, face burning with embarrassment. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s then summoned to the captain’s ready room.

“Lieutenant Riker,” Captain Stefano Callas says, his voice sharp. “Have a seat. If that were a real combat situation, you’d have just got all of us killed.”

“I know,” Will says, posture hunched as he sits down. “I don’t know what’s got into me.”

“Who are they?”

“What?”

“This person who's kicked you to the curb.” His captain's smile is knowing.

“Actually, I was the one who ended things,” Will admits, figuring he might as well explain the whole sorry mess. “Her name’s Deanna and I met her on Betazed when I was posted there. We were supposed to meet for shore leave, but after I took up my position here I couldn’t get away. So I thought it would be best to end it now. Deanna...she's beautiful and brilliant and I always wanted to be a better person when I was around her.” He feels emptier than ever for admitting that, to his captain no less.

“You either transfer off this ship and go get her or you get your head in the game, Lieutenant,” Callas says, kindly but firmly. “Look, Will; we’ve all been there. But is she really worth it?” He glances at his computer console and taps in a few commands. “I’ve given you the rest of the day off. Think it over.”

Will imagines Deanna, waiting there on Risa, the cruel brevity of the message he sent her, and longs to undo what he did. But then he thinks about his father and how he never thought he’d amount to anything. The explanations he had to give to the academy board before they admitted him with blemishes on his juvenile record. He’d had to ask Kyle to intervene, in the end, a humiliation he could still hardly bear years later.

He's fought so hard for this and nothing should stand in his way. Not even Deanna. He throws his photos of her into the recycler and weeps until his eyes are puffy and his head is ringing with the pain of dehydration. Other tokens — a volume of love poetry, the pressed muktok flower she gave him go into a storage crate, and it takes him a good few years to be able to look at them.

The next months on the _Potemkin_ pass in a blur. After the evacuation of Nervala IV and his transfer to the _Hood_ as second officer, Will truly finds his feet. He switches from tactical back to conn and sheds his gold uniform for red. The first day he puts on the new colour, he walks the halls like he owns the ship, because now he sometimes gets to command it.

His new-found confidence is enough to draw the eye of petite, pretty Ensign Vasquez in the mess hall at breakfast time. They make out in the turbolift after alpha shift ends and it’s the most fun he’s had in months.

“Aren’t you seeing someone?” she asks breathlessly when he pulls back.

“Not anymore,” Will tells her, a grin sliding onto his face.

He never closely examines the reasons why he eschews dating those next few years, instead preferring a series of quick, heady flings and one-night stands. He tells himself he is trying to stay focused — his promotion to Captain DeSoto’s first officer means his plans to make captain by thirty-five seem to be on track. At the back of his mind, or sometimes in his dreams, he sees dark eyes that looked at him with an understanding he’d never found before. Every time, he pushes it away. Until he gets everything he ever wanted — executive officer of the _Enterprise-D,_ a plum job he beat out more than two hundred other candidates for — and a thought of what Deanna would say rises, unbidden. Would she be proud of him? He wishes he knew.

In the days before his transfer, Will spends most of his time absorbed in crew manifests, something he has a say in for the first time in his life. Only Starfleet’s best and brightest are chosen to be on the flagship and he can hardly sleep for excitement the night before he leaves.

He pauses over one name: _Deanna Troi, Ship’s Counselor._ He knew she’d done well for herself, but her rank of lieutenant commander is a surprise. Will is itching to pull up her service record, but decides against it for now. There will be time enough to get to know the abilities of his officers, and Deanna is now one of many under his charge as first officer.

His first day on the job is tougher than he expected. He aims for smooth and competent and instead comes off as rigid and joyless with his subordinates, so it isn’t the best first impression. At least he manages to fake having nerves of steel when he comes up against the gruff, unreadable Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Here is Deanna at last, smiling serenely and thought-casting at him as if it hasn’t been years since he’s felt her mind wrapping around his.

 _I too could never say goodbye, imzadi_ , she tells him without words, and he knows at once he’s in no way as over her as he’s been pretending to be.

Much later, after the jellyfish entities have sailed off into space, Will finally has a moment to breathe. He finds himself wondering how he’s ever going to work with the woman who he has honestly never stopped wanting.

“How was it for you?” Deanna asks carefully.

They’re drinking Trakian ale in her quarters, their boots off, feet up at opposite ends of her couch. He came to see if she was alright after the loss of Ian, and she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Somehow, they’ve drifted to the subject of their own breakup, now more than three years past.

“Honestly? I was a mess. Cried myself to sleep for weeks. I was close to being transferred off the ship by my captain.”

“Will Riker, lovesick? Surely not?” Deanna's eyes widen in mock surprise.

He leans forward to prod her arm affectionately. “Come on, imzadi,” he admonishes. “The least you could do is not mock me when I’m baring my soul.”

“I would never,” Deanna allows, and the smile that follows her words is sympathetic.

“If you must know, I didn’t — you know— for at least a year afterwards.”

Deanna’s eyebrows twitch. She gestures to his mug of ale. “I think you’ve definitely had too much of that. I’ve never known you to deal in euphemisms.”

Will knows she’s picking up on his sudden anxiety. “Too confessional for you, Deanna?” He runs his fingers around the rim of his tankard.

She tilts her head, considering. “No,” she says eventually. “I suppose I should be flattered, in a way. But I did want you to be happy, and I wouldn’t have begrudged you that. I hope you know it.”

Will tentatively reaches out for her hand. A mix of anticipation and hesitation stops him in his tracks, but she closes the distance between them, linking their fingers together. He’s struck by how far they’ve come already.

“I do know it,” he says, aware his voice is soft with feeling and hoping she doesn’t get the wrong idea about it. “I wanted you to be happy, too. Even after I stopped moping all the time I thought about you a lot. I hoped you were doing well in your studies on Betazed. That you were managing to cope with your mother.”

Deanna makes an amused sound. “She still asks after William and his nice legs. Although she wasn’t your biggest fan for a while.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Will says, and she squeezes his hand, letting him know she can sense his guilt and that it’s okay — or at least, if not okay, it’s in the past and they don’t need to dwell on it.

“To turn the question around, Counselor — what about you? If I may ask. I imagine you threw yourself into your studies.”

“I did,” Deanna says slowly, keeping her expression neutral in a way that suggests there’s a lot more going on underneath. “I also ate a lot of chocolate. Slept with any Starfleet cadet I could.”

“Now I’m impressed,” Will says, laughing softly. He pushes away the brief stab to his ego from knowing she moved on first. “Did it help?”

“Not really,” she admits without a trace of embarrassment. Or perhaps he’s wrong about that. Right after, she pulls her hand from his and goes to the replicator to get them both a refill.

He used to read her better. Another thing that’s changed between them.

“Anyway,” Deanna continues smoothly, pressing another ale into his hands. “From what I’ve seen, you’re giving me a run for my money these days.” She winks at him. “Good for you. Even the XO of the Federation flagship needs to have a little fun sometimes.”

He doesn’t know how she can manage to be so casual about this. Their first few weeks on the ship were difficult, every interaction loaded with his own guilt, her buried anger and their mutual attraction to one another. In recent months, the atmosphere between them has changed, old hurts fading into the background and every conversation becoming easier. However, Deanna has always been guarded, her ordered Betazoid mind masterful at projecting to people only what she wants to them to know. Will has the distinct sense they’re having two different conversations right now, and he can’t blame her for that. Probably, she’s downplaying how much he hurt her, while he is doing the opposite to some extent. Maybe it’s kinder for them both to bend the truth at this point.

“I may have been having too much fun,” Will says, rueful, resolving to try and be more discreet about his love life in future.

“You know, some of the junior officers have given you a nickname.” Deanna smiles mischievously and takes a sip of her ale.

“Dare I ask? Or perhaps you won’t tell me,” Will says, aware that he’s getting the right side of synthehol-drunk to become more flirtatious than he should be.

“I don’t think it’s my place to say,” Deanna says, smirking, “but let’s just say it starts with Commander, rhymes with duck and has the same ending sound as your last name…”

Will coughs as some of his ale goes down the wrong way. “How original. I guess it beats Ensign Babyface.”

It looks as though he isn’t the only one feeling the effects of the synthehol when Deanna reaches out to stroke her thumb over his beard. The touch is slow and vaguely erotic (and maybe he’s too drunk and needs to get the hell out of here). Either way, his skin is tingling from her touch and there’s an energy between them he remembers from years past.

“I think I prefer you like this,” she says thoughtfully, black pupils fixing squarely on his with full Betazoid intensity. He never had a chance all those years ago, when he met those eyes at a wedding and figured out what love at first sight was all about.

“With the beard?” he murmurs, shifting closer in spite of himself and wondering when he crossed the line into seduction.

“It’s rather…distinguished,” Deanna says, mirroring his tone, her voice low. She lets her hand drop but doesn’t move away.

Will blinks, his mind warring as he contemplates how much it would fuck things up if he kissed her right now. Or if she’d even let him.

A smile is twitching at the corner of her lip and he has the sneaking suspicion she knows exactly what’s written all over his face. Empathic gifts notwithstanding.

Changing tack, he moves along the couch and pulls her into his arms, hugging her against his chest. She makes a small sound of contentment and there’s no hint that she’s disappointed by this turn of events. Will breathes a sigh of relief, allowing himself to enjoy the sensation of Deanna close to him, warm and pliable.

“I missed your hugs,” Deanna says, carefully drawing back. “I always felt so safe in your arms.”

“Available anytime,” Will says fondly. He presses a kiss to the top of her head, hoping that isn’t overstepping the mark too much. “Guess I’d better get going. It’s late.”

“Of course.” Deanna springs up, gathering up their empty tankards to take to the recycler.

“Thanks,” Will tells her, getting to his feet with some effort.

“Imzadi,” Deanna says as he’s heading for the door.

He stops. “Yeah?”

“I would have let you kiss me, you know,” she admits, her voice unsteady for the first time this evening. “I wanted to let you. But it doesn’t feel like we’d be doing it for the right reasons. Remember the night after Tasha died?”

After the funeral, he’d walked Deanna to her door and they’d ended up kissing, so desperate for any kind of comfort they’d forgotten their usual professional boundaries. Her fingers were at the fastenings of his uniform before he’d taken her hands in his and reminded her of all the reasons why this wasn’t the right time. Leaving her that night had taken an iron discipline he wasn’t sure he still possessed, but he could never have taken advantage of her like that, not if he wanted to look her in the eye the next day and call her his friend.

“I remember, yeah.” Will swallows back the sudden lump in his throat. “And I’d agree.” He summons up a smile that costs him more than he would admit to her — of course, she probably knows that anyway. “You’re still beautiful.”

“You’re still charming.” Deanna smiles. “And incorrigible. Good night, Will.”

With that, he takes his cue to leave. He pauses outside her quarters to collect himself, allowing the syntheholic haze to clear itself from his brain.

He’s one hundred per cent convinced he is still completely in love with Deanna Troi, but maybe that doesn't matter as much as he thinks it does. Right now, Will has hope that they’ll carve out a space for themselves out of all the awkwardness and pain: something new.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Gonna Get Over You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUe3oVlxLSA) by Sara Bareilles, which I listened to approximately 100x while writing this fic.


End file.
